Piers Morgan is to give evidence to the Leveson inquiry into media ethics and phone hacking, it has been announced.

Lord Justice Leveson told the inquiry on Thursday that the former editor of the Daily Mirror would be asked to give evidence on what he knew about the prevalence of phone hacking on Fleet Street.

Morgan also faces questions about whether hacking happened at the Mirror during his watch.

Giving evidence to the inquiry, media lawyer Mark Thompson said he believed the illegal hacking of voicemails went beyond the News of the World.

"Heather Mills has confirmed to me that a person other than Piers Morgan admitted to her at the Mirror group that her phone had been accessed," he said.

Morgan has always vigorously denied that hacking went on at his newspapers, previously saying: “For the record, in my time at the News of the World and the Mirror, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, or published any stories based on the hacking of a phone."